Arthur Schafer

Currently accepting graduate students - yes

  • Master's
  • PhD

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Teaching

  • PHIL 2290 - Applied Ethics, Part I
  • PHIL 2740 - Ethics and Biomedicine
  • ARCH 7350 - Legal Aspects of Architectural Practice

Biography

Arthur Schafer is a Canadian ethicist specializing in professional and applied ethics, special focus on bioethics. He is the Founding Director of the Centre for Professional and Applied Ethics, Full Professor, Department of Philosophy and was formerly ethics consultant for the Winnipeg Regional Health Authority, Head of the Section of Bio-Medical Ethics Faculty of Medicine. Visiting scholar Green College, Oxford.

Honours and awards include Canadian Commonwealth Scholar, Honorary Woodrow Wilson Scholar, Canada Council Fellow, the Stanton Teaching Excellence Award, the Campbell Award for University Outreach, and University of Manitoba Teaching Service Award for Teaching Excellence.

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Schafer has published widely in the fields of moral, social, and political philosophy. He is author of The Buck Stops Here: Reflections on moral responsibility, democratic accountability and military values, and co-editor of two books: Ethics and Animal Experimentation and Fragile Freedoms: the global struggle for human rights. His curriculum vitae lists more than 90 scholarly articles and book chapters, covering a wide range of topics, with a special focus on issues in professional and bio-medical ethics. Professor Schafer is National Research Associate of the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, which has published two of his Reports. He has made several hundred conference presentations, both in Canada and abroad, and has written dozens of newspaper articles for The Globe and Mail, The Toronto Star, The Winnipeg Free Press, The Medical Post, and The Sunday Times (London).

Schafer has been a frequent guest on CBC radio and television, including many appearances on CBC radio's Morningside, This Morning, The Current, As It Happens, Sunday Morning, Ideas, and Cross Country Check Up; and CBC television's The National, The Journal, The National Magazine, and Newsworld. He has also appeared frequently on other radio and television networks. He has done podcasts for Oxford University and CBC-Ideas.

Education

  • BLitt (Philosophy), University of Oxford, 1967

  • BA Honours, University of Manitoba

Research

Research interests

  • Research ethics
  • Biomedical conflicts of interest
  • Medical assistance in dying

Research affiliations/groups

Selected publications

  • “Institutional Conflicts of Interest: cracking the deferiprone mystery”, Journal of Medical Ethics, January 2020.
  • Co-Editor (with Steven Lecce and Neil McArthur), Fragile Freedoms: The Global Struggle for Human Rights, Oxford University Press. Spring 2017.
  • “The Great Canadian Euthanasia Debate”, International Journal of Law and Psychiatry, Vol. 36, Issues 5-6, September-December, pp. 522-531 2013.
  • “Biomedical conflicts of interest: a defence of the sequestration thesis”, Journal of Medical Ethics, 2004; 30: 8-24.
  • “Inmate voting rights: two recent Canadian cases”, Queen Mary Law Journal (University of London), (October) 1999.
  • Down and out in Winnipeg and Toronto: the ethics of legislating against panhandling. Caledon Institute Publications, 1999.
  • Ethics of animal and Human Experimentation, eds. P. P. De Deyn, R.D'Hooge, R. Clara, and A. Schafer, John Libbey Co.Ltd., London. 1995
  • "AIDS: The Social Dimension", in Perspectives on AIDS: Ethical and Social Issues, ed. C. Overall, Oxford University Press, 1991. 
  • "Civil Liberties and the Elderly Patient", in Ethics and Aging, ed. E. Winkler, University of British Columbia Press, 1988.
  • "On Using Nazi Data: The Case Against", Dialogue, Vol. XXV, 1986.
  • "The Ethics of the Randomized Clinical Trial", New England Journal of Medicine, September 16, 1982.
  • "Moral Fanaticism: The Utilitarian's Nightmare?” Journal of Social Philosophy, Vol. XII, No.1, January, 1981.
  • "Privacy: A Philosophical Overview", in Aspects of Privacy Law, ed. D. Gibson, Butterworth, 1980.

Awards

  • 1984 - D. R. Campbell Outreach Award, University of Manitoba
  • 1976 - Olive Beatrice Stanton Award for Excellence in Teaching, University of Manitoba
  • 1964 - Canadian Commonwealth Scholarship, The Association of Commonwealth Universities
  • 1964 - Woodrow Wilson Fellowship, The Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation

Outreach

  • Publications in various newspaper and magazines.
  • Media interviews for radio, television and popular media, including podcasts.
  • Provincial-Territorial Expert Panel on Medical Assistance in Dying.
  • Ethics consultant to Winnipeg Regional Health Authority and to various hospitals.
  • Consultant to professional associations in Medicine, Engineering, Architecture, Nursing, and Pharmacy.

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